


One (of a Kind)

by ColorWithMarker



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clones, Multi, Orphan Black AU, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 12:08:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8101834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColorWithMarker/pseuds/ColorWithMarker
Summary: It started with a random girl being shot who just happened to have the same face as Natasha.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's an idea I'd been rolling around for a while before deciding "fuck it" and just going with it.

Natasha needed to take a little “her time” to unwind her mind and focus on trying to act like she was capable of being normal for a day. Training new recruits, monitoring new threats and new rising powerful people, pretending she wasn’t aware of the shitstorm SHIELD was slowly becoming – it was too much. And fortunately, Helen was in the same boat, so they called it a girls’ day and headed to New York City. It was better to eat at Portuguese restaurants and rent bikes to ride on trails with a friend than by herself. (That, and Helen had so many stories to swap with her that weren’t variations of what she already knew. It made her feel like there was someone else to finally get close to her and not freak out at the number of times she’d pulled bullets out of her legs.)

“We should make this a regular thing,” Helen commented as they sat on a bench, their bikes perched on it, with vanilla ice cream in cones in their hands. She wiped at a drop rolling from her lips and licked her finger.

“What? Coming here? We usually do. Villains like starting shit here,” Natasha said. A few kids playing at the nearby sandbox gave her lingering looks. Even though she was wearing large sunglasses that covered half of her face, her hair was a usual dead giveaway to her identity. She contemplated if she wanted to out herself, and maybe even take pictures if their parents asked. Kids loved that.

“No, I mean girls’ days. It’s so damn stressful at the base. We don’t always have to do New York, either. Maybe we can do an overnight at Niagara Falls. You can come visit my family with me in Arizona or South Korea. I’m sure Tony won’t mind flying us out with Pepper,” Helen explained. “I’m sure Wanda would love the fresh, unmonitored air. I know I do.” She took a bite of her cone. “I think you do too.”

Natasha smirked. “Who wouldn’t? It’s not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, but I’d like to not check my bathrooms for cameras before I pee or shower – by the way, you’re welcome for taking care of your rooms.”

Helen made an uncomfortable sound. “They didn’t!”

“Two in the bedroom, one in the closet, one in the bathroom above the mirror. I made sure everyone knew just how unforgiving I was about it.” Natasha licked her melting treat. She didn’t mention that the cameras had given her a few memories of her Red Room days, but Helen wasn’t ready to know that side of her. Yet. Maybe.

Suddenly, a man nearly fifty yards from them whipped out a gun and shot a random blonde woman on the walkway. Children screamed, parents tried shielding or running with them, and the park dissolved into pandemonium. Natasha helped Helen over and behind the bench before pulling the gun hidden inside her leather jacket, standing on the bench, and aiming it at the gunman. He looked up and saw Natasha, his eyes widening slightly. He began taking shots at her, to which she ducked and tried to hit him from the ground. It was too crowded to shoot without hitting a pedestrian, so she waited for him to run into a clearing open enough to give her a better chance.

Instead, she watched him collapse on the ground, his head bleeding from the gaping wound.

Natasha stood up and helped Helen to her feet. Well, girls’ day was now ruined.

She and Helen pulled out their SHIELD badges and held them out as they moved towards the bodies. Neither were alive, that much was obvious. The woman’s handbag was covering her face, but the blood seeping out gave Natasha an idea of where her wound was. Helen pulled out latex gloves from her messenger bag, handed the bag to Natasha, and began examining the bodies. Natasha pulled out the other pair and took the woman’s handbag as Helen handed it to her. Her face was too black and red to identify.

Natasha pulled out the wallet, opened it, and then dropped it. Helen looked up at her and asked, “Is everything okay?”

Natasha convinced her body not to shake, and calmly said, “I need you to check the ID.”

“What? Why? What’s wrong?” Helen opened the wallet, and her eyes grew in size. She held it up to Natasha and stared between her and the ID. “Holy shit.”

Natasha stared at the ID of Annie Braddock, and at the picture of her own face. She looked back at the body. Now she could start to see the similar shaped nose, the angle of the jaw, and the shape of the body that was exactly her own too.

She was looking at her own dead body, with a different name attached to it.

“We need SHIELD,” she said.

“What? No, we need to get the hell out of here!” Helen insisted. “Someone just killed a woman like you, and he was shooting at you too! Who knows if he’s the only one out there, or worse, who knows what the police will do when they find out. Or the government! Or SHIELD!” Helen pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of the ID, then of the two bodies. “We need to get to Tony. He can get us the information we need.”

“With all that tactical thinking, you sure you don’t wanna be an official SHIELD officer?” Natasha teased with a straight face.

“Not after this, I don’t.” Helen and Natasha jumped on their bikes and sped back to the edge of the park, while Natasha texted Happy to meet them at the entrance.

 

* * *

 

Natasha paced the lab while Helen and Tony worked on recreating the crime scene and retracing the steps of Annie Braddock. She didn’t know what else to do with herself. She knew Helen had to be right to some degree – she had to have a target on her back somehow.

“Oh, fuck,” Tony said, astonished. Natasha’s focus went to him. He pointed at the screen, where there were three other copies of her face, all with different names underneath them.

“Anna Marks on February sixth, Kelly Foster on Decemer twenty-third, and Francesca Curtis on January thirtieth, all within the last year,” Tony read aloud. “And Annie Braddock today, on March twenty-fourth.”

“This isn’t just coincidence, then,” Helen noted. “Four girls who all look the same are murdered?”

“Murder-suicides for two of them, including today. Looks like they all have different people targeting them.”

“Translating to them having to all know each other, and all coming from the same place. There has to be a reason behind all of this.”

“Behind what, there being four girls who look just like me, or to them being randomly murdered?” Natasha asked angrily.

Tony turned to face her. “Both, by the looks of it,” he answered.

Natasha sighed and muttered, “Shit.” She looked back up and the screen. “How fast can you get us to your mother’s home in Spain?”

“Seven hours, if leave in five for the airport,” Tony said.

“Helen, you mind extending girls’ day into a week?”

“It doesn’t look like we have a plan B for now,” Helen answered.

“Good. FRIDAY, compile as much as you can on as few devices that we can. Tony, get Happy and get us to the airport. Then get him and Pepper as far from here as you can. Once SHIELD knows we were here, they’ll be considered accessories. Don’t let either of them know anything. Helen, if you want to call your family and tell them anything, you better do that sooner than later. It might be a while before you can do that again.”

“ _I have it down to four tablets and Mister Stark’s third cellular device, Agent Romanov,_ ” FRIDAY announced in her usual airy tone. Helen took her cellphone and began dialing numbers. Tony did the same.

“We have someone close by who can meet us and hopefully make sure we won’t have unexpected company,” he explained.

“Fine, but no one else is let in until we figure out what the hell is going on,” Natasha said. She waited for Tony to be done before taking his phone, dropping it on the table, and smashing it with the nearby hammer. “It’s the first thing they’ll use to track you. Helen, you need to do the same.” To demonstrate her seriousness, she broke her own phone. They needed to be off the grid the second they landed in Spain, and the sooner the better.

Three minutes later, in the parking garage, the trio climbed into the backseat of Tony’s pick-up truck, with Happy in the front seat. Natasha held her gun, but kept her hand low. Tony adjusted his in his hidden shoulder holster beneath his coat. Helen grabbed the one in the compartment beneath her seat and stuffed it in her purse. It was small enough to fit in the inner pocket.

Happy dropped them off ten feet from the stairs leading up to the Stark Jet, with the fuel guys shouting that they’ll be ready to go in five minutes. Near the top of the stairs, Tony, who was in front, stopped and turned to face the airport.

“Someone in there?” Natasha asked as she and Helen also turned to look.

“No, I just want to say goodbye to the last nine months of normalcy. Just when life was getting back to normal…” Tony droned off, and Natasha also stared at the airport. She, too, was getting back into her typical routine. It had been nice, but it had been too long. She knew she was overdue for something to fuck up everything. She just hadn’t expected herself to be at the center of it all.

 

* * *

 

She watched the jet take off the runway with a black expression. It was heading to Castelldefels. Fine by her. She would be landing in Barcelona in ten hours. She could kill two birds with one stone. It wouldn’t be a challenge. This one would fight her the most, but it wouldn’t stand a chance. Not by a longshot. Only one could, and the second she found it, she would give it no mercy. She had to be the last one standing. She was the first and she will be the last.

 

* * *

 

She watched the man walk out of the market, looking like he was whistling. She had her eye on him for a while now. He was a professor at Harvard, who always wore his school’s name on his clothing with great pride.

Cute, but she had more in mind than an education from him. She pulled along him, rolled down the window, and smiled.

“I’m sorry, but I’m horribly lost. I’m trying to find my cousin’s dorm at your school, but I find it impossible to navigate these towns,” she lied easily.

The man laughed. “Wow, is that an accent. I’m guessing you’re from Scotland?” he asked. She nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably really lost, then. Here, we can do this quid pro quo. A lift for some directions sound good to you?” Another nod, this one more eager with a widening smile. “Great! Let me just load these into the backseat…”

She unlocked her car doors and stared forward, keeping her smile. He looked perfect, as they all had.

She would dine well this week.


End file.
